In response to the coronavirus emergency, the Board issued an Order suspending door-to-door sales activities. Specifically, "[a]ll door-to-door sales activity by third-party suppliers or other sales persons selling energy or energy related products (for example: residential solar, community solar, or energy efficiency offerings) are to be suspended immediately."

The Board's action follows similar actions taken by the Commissions in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois and New York to halt such activities as reported separately by NEM. The full texts of all of these Emergency Orders are available on the NEM Website (zip file).

NEM filed a letter request with the Commission requesting a further extension for ESCO compliance with Ordering Clauses 1, 2, 5 and 6 of the Commission’s December 2019 Order Adopting Changes to the Retail Access Energy Market for a minimum of an additional ninety days. The Commission previously granted an extension to May 11, 2020, to comply with the requirements of Ordering Clauses 1, 2 and 5 and an extension to June 9, 2020, to comply with the requirements of Ordering Clause 6. NEM noted that significant uncertainty exists for ESCO compliance efforts in the absence of a Commission Order on the Petitions for Rehearing. When an Order is ultimately issued, ESCOs will have to assimilate the details of any new or modified requirements, develop compliant products, submit materials to Staff for approval, effectuate the transfer of customers to new products and satisfy financial assurance requirements. Accordingly, NEM requested that a meaningful transitional period for implementation of the extensive new regulatory regime be adopted. NEM also noted that the coronavirus emergency poses additional challenges for ESCO compliance. The full text of NEM's Letter Request is available on the NEM Website.

The Commission issued an order opening a proceeding on the strategic use of energy-related data. Noting that multiple proceedings have addressed this issue in the past, the Commission decided that a comprehensive approach in a unified proceeding would be preferable at this time. The proceeding will examine two issues, a data access policy framework and an integrated energy data resource.

"The establishment of a Data Access Framework that clearly defines the process for access, standardizes the necessary privacy, cybersecurity, and quality requirements for access to energy related data will ensure uniform treatment across various energy related data use cases. This framework will also include the development of metrics regarding quality and accuracy of energy related data." Staff is to prepare a data access policy framework white paper that includes proposals for: 1) standard definitions of key data related terms; 2) customer consent; 3) access to what types of data by whom; 4) privacy controls; 5) cybersecurity requirements; and, 6) data quality standards.

An integrated energy data resource (which appears to be synonymous with a centralized repository for energy related data) "should include both customer usage and system data, and should help to reduce DER supplier transaction costs associated with access to energy related data." Staff is to prepare a white paper on an integrated energy data resource that includes recommendations for stakeholder engagement, data resource design, data resource use cases, implementation, and operation.

Both Staff white papers are due sixty days from the date of the Order and will be issued for public comment. The full text of the Order Opening Proceeding is available on the NEM Website.